


Pilled and Pilfered

by FadedSepia



Series: Clint Barton Bingo Lines [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Awkard Clint Barton, Borrowing Clothes, Clueless Matt Murdock, Couch Cuddles, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sharing Clothes, WAFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FadedSepia/pseuds/FadedSepia
Summary: Matt’s wanting a subtler sort of comfort, one he isn’t certain he should – could – ask for, even if Clint were here. He skims the edge of the bed with his hand but doesn’t pause on his way to the closet.Matt just wants to borrow a sweatshirt…Clint Barton Bingo:Didn’t know they were dating (B3)
Relationships: Clint Barton & Matt Murdock, Clint Barton/Matt Murdock
Series: Clint Barton Bingo Lines [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311593
Comments: 35
Kudos: 219
Collections: Clint Barton Bingo





	Pilled and Pilfered

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to use a bingo prompt to expand my writing a little. This is my first attempt at DareHawk? (I like calling it _Mint_, but that’s just me…) 
> 
> Big thanks to shatteredhourglass for being an awesome trampoline for bouncing ideas!

**➽ • ↁ • ➽ • ↁ**

Breaking and entering is something he’s done often enough that it shouldn’t matter – Matt _shouldn’t_ care – but it feels different, breaking into Clint’s place. Maybe it’s because it’s across the river, not in The Kitchen. Or maybe it’s that he has permission this time. He has a _key_. Matt has the go ahead to be here, to get stitched up or do the stitching, to drink the beers going stale in the fridge, to bite against the back of Clint’s neck while they fuck. That’s just the friendship they have.

This time though...

Matt’s wanting a subtler sort of comfort, one he isn’t certain he should – _could_ – ask for, even if Clint were here. He skims the edge of the bed with his hand but doesn’t pause on his way to the closet.

Clint’s clothes aren’t exactly organized – if he’s being truthful, Matt is genuinely a little surprised at how many of them are even hung up – and they don’t have the texture contrast stitching of his own. Still, Matt finds what he’s seeking; the fabric is worn and achingly soft, and the damn thing is enormous. It’s funny because – while, yes, Clint has five inches and forty pounds on him – the taller man doesn’t need this much room. This even swamps Clint, exposing a strip of shoulder when Hawkeye wears it off the clock. It’s soft, and worn, and Matt feels a little warmer just grasping it. It’s perfect.

He doesn’t leave a note. He’ll bring it back, probably before Clint even notices that it’s gone. Matt tucks the sweatshirt under his arm, then it’s up to the roof and across the river for home.

**➽ • ↁ • ➽ • ↁ**

Matt sleeps with the sweatshirt wrapped around his pillow on Friday night. Which is to say that he tries to sleep with it but keeps waking up when he shifts or rolls off of the pillow. It _is_ better; he’s at least managing to _fall_ asleep, it’s just that he’s having difficulty staying that way. There isn’t anyone else that he could call for this sort of thing, either. Claire is still mad at him, Luke’s not a hugger, Danny’s _too_ free of personal space boundaries, and Jessica’s vodka haze burns his nose. Plus, they’re friends from work. Not that Clint isn’t – not that pretty much all of Matt’s friends aren’t, really – but Clint is a friend outside of work.

Maybe outside of _friends._

Matt’s not sure.

Probably because he’s so fucking tired.

The shower doesn’t make Matt any more awake; quite the opposite. With the water as scalding as he can stand it, and the pressure at full blast, twenty minutes in the shower is a purposeful sensory overload. One Matt hopes will tire him out. He spends half of it taking the spray full to the back of his head, letting the drops pound right behind his ears. The steady sound and constant warm flow of water pull a haze over the world around him, and Matt carries it with him once he shuts off the spray.

He forgoes his pyjamas, reaching for and pulling on the purloined hoodie once he’s dry. The sweatshirt hits halfway down Matt’s thighs. It’s been washed so many times that the spring-back stretchiness of the elastic is nearly gone; it gapes at the collar, and Matt shrugs it back onto his shoulder, only for it to slide anyway. He’s not exactly a little guy, but he’s pretty sure two of him could fit in this sweatshirt.

The fuzz and pilling of the worn cloth are almost overwhelming across his bare skin, but Matt finds he doesn’t mind, even still over-sensitive from the shower. It’s warm and smells like Clint, and he can pretzel up inside it on his couch; tugging it down and drawing his legs in so only his toes stick out. Matt’s arms are wrapped around his knees, nose tucked close against the edge of the hood, when he gets the idea. He stands long enough to spin it around backwards – an easy task, since his arms are still inside – then flips the hood over his face. The tag at the front of his neck is a bit of an irritant, but Matt feels better this way. The scent of Clint is overpowering, and he’s warm and safe. And tired. Matt is so fucking tired. He tucks back into the corner of the sofa, curled into the hoodie, and – _finally!_ – rests.

**➽ • ↁ • ➽ • ↁ**

The heartbeat cues him in even before he’s fully awake. Usually, Matt would have noticed the change in the air, but his nose is buried in Clint’s hoodie; the scent of the man sitting in his living room chair is everywhere. “Hawkeye.” Matt stretches, shifting, but leaving the hood where it is, staying tucked into the oversized sweatshirt.

Clint sighs, the leather behind his head squeaking gently as he turns. “My ears hurt after having them in so long. They’re on the table. If you’re awake, D, can you wave or something?” The loss of tonality and low volume underscore Clint’s point; he can’t hear Matt, or himself.

Matt doesn’t want to – he isn’t wearing his glasses – but he pulls the hood off his face, leaving it to fall over his chest, doing his best to keep his sightless gaze angled slightly down. They’ve known each other long enough that Clint will be able to read his lips if he’s deliberate, but Matt doesn’t want to stare. “Welcome back.”

Clint’s snorts and little huffs are their own language. This one lands somewhere between pleased and exasperated, drawn out enough that Matt would know Clint was tired just by the sound. With the hood down, and a few hours of sleep at least, the exhaustion on Clint is easy to read. He still smells like he’s just come in from the field – the acrid, oily smell from the gunpowder, the heavy rich scents of warm leather and Kevlar, the slightest air of someone else’s soap and just a hint of _Poison_. “How’s your partner? Everyone back safely?”

“‘Tasha’s fine.” There is that same chuckle, again, and the slight creak – leather seat and bracers and body armour all flexing – as Clint leans forward over his knees. It’s muffled as far as separate pieces of his uniform go. Clint has on a hoodie or something over his gear, meaning he’s probably been by his apartment. “You’re gonna take my shirt, but not even ask me how I am?”

“You look okay to me.” Matt grins back at him because – for once – it’s true. Clint’s moving normally, his pulse isn’t elevated from pain or slowed by sedation, and there’s no smell of ointment or adhesive around him. He’s certain to have some scrapes and bruises, but that’s the case for Clint going to the store; he’s fucking _pristine_ for having just returned from a mission. “Not like you’d tell me if you were bad off, anyway.”

“That’s funny from you, Matt.” The smile’s still in Clint’s words as he shifts in the chair. He isn’t talking much, but Matt can tell when he turns his head – neck shifting against his collar, the slight _pat_ as Clint’s chin lands in his palm – and has to guess that Clint is looking at him. There’s the barest uptick in his pulse, a slight twist in the echo of his words that say his smile is more smirk. “So… you took my sweatshirt.”

“I was going to put it back.” Matt isn’t sure why he responds so defensively. They’ve borrowed the other’s clothing – fuck, they’ve borrowed each other’s gear – more than just a few times. Mostly him, when he’s needed some specialty bit of equipment for which Clint’s been an easy source. Aside from weapons, Matt’s gear is usually too small for Clint, though. Not like this pullover. Matt wriggles, hunching inside it. “I needed it.”

“I can see that. I wouldn’t think it would be comfortable for you.”

“It’s soft enough.” Matt hesitates – wondering if it’s weird; wondering what about this and them isn’t weird – but says the rest anyway. “It smells nice.”

Clint is easy for him to read; most of the time, he isn’t trying to keep his thoughts – or at least his reactions – hidden. His pulse speeds, still steady, but the slightest bit faster, and he tilts his head the other way. Clint sits still for long enough that Matt can hazard that he’s either staring, again, or looking away. It’s only after a hard swallow that the other man guardedly answers. “I haven’t done laundry in-”

“It…” Matt cuts him off, then trails into silence. He’s on the spot, now. “It smells nice. Like you.”

“Oh.” The leather shifts and barely squeaks as Clint pulls away and leans back. His hair _shushes_ beneath his fingertips as he runs his hand over his head, nails _scritching_ against the back of his neck. Clint’s breathing is oddly slow, like he’s forcing the stillness. “I could have given you one of the better looking ones. That one…” He’s motioning with his hand, rocking it back and forth at the wrist, eddying the air with a sigh. “… you might not want to keep _that_ one.”

Matt hadn’t considered _keeping_ the shirt as an option. He’s never _kept_ anything of Clint’s, not permanently. They’re friends, yeah, but… But Matt thinks he might really _want_ to keep this particular hoodie. “Is it lime green?”

“No…” The word is drawn out long enough that Clint must think there’s something objectionable about it.

“So it’s old and purple?” The wear makes the garment’s age obvious. Matt doesn’t actually _know_ that it’s purple, but he can hazard a guess; most of Clint’s tops are, either fully or partially. Maybe it’s because the sweatshirt isn’t really his usual style in public, but Matt does own some casual clothing. He wears them infrequently – they’re all a little blood spattered, and either the black he wears on nights without the suit or hangover pyjamas – but he’d add this sweatshirt, if Clint let him. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, but…” There’s that weird tick in Clint’s breathing, again, and he chuckles. He shifts, canvas and Kevlar creaking and sliding over leather as Clint draws up a knee and turns to look at him directly. “It says _I Heart Hawkeye,_ Matt.”

“Oh.” It’s _merch._ That makes a little more sense. Wearing Clint’s merch might be a _thing_; might cause issues with work. Matt would have to be extra careful with an older _Avengers_ adjacent hoodie, especially given his own tenuous connections to other vigilantes through work. Hawkeye is officially sanctioned as an _Avenger,_ but Matt usually tries to avoid anything related to his night work overlapping with his day work. That Clint remembered that is… sweet. That Matt realizes he wasn’t even thinking about it deserves a little more thought. He’ stalling as he asks, “Would it embarrass you if I wore it?”

“No. I mean, you know I’m shameless.” Clint’s tone has shifted, again, almost indulgent, and – in contrast to his own words – embarrassed. He shakes his head. “I just thought you wanted to keep our thing private.”

“Thing?”

The man across from him nods. Clint’s lip makes the barest wet_ flick_ of a sound as he tugs it between his teeth. His breathing is noticeably faster, and he’s just dry-swallowed. The words are too tentative, and the jump in his heart-rate is real; Clint doesn’t mean them as a joke. “Yeah… Ya know, that we’re dating. _That_ thing.”

The words come out of left field, beaning Matt in the head and throwing him for a mental loop like in the comics he can vaguely remember reading as a kid. “But we’re not.”

Clint snorts – derisively this time – clicking his tongue. Matt hears the soft brush as he rubs his fingers through his hair again, the creak of the leather chair and the click of Clint’s knee as he stands. The cushion beside him dips as Clint sits at the other end of the couch, looking back at him. “You don’t think we’re dating?”

“You think we are?” Matt’s usually better about policing his tone than this, but Clint’s reaction isn’t lining up with any of his other experiences with people he’s been… When was the last time he was dating someone, actually? It’s an odd thought, but Matt can’t wrap his head around the word and the actions together, not with Clint in there, too. Maybe, with effort…

The man beside Matt has taken his silence and decided to fill it with an explanation. “We have keys to each other’s roofs.”

And, by extension, to each other’s apartments. Which – yes – could be a dating _thing_ if there weren’t such a simple, pragmatic reason for it. “Because we need backup to get home sometimes, and anyone else would be too much hassle.”

Clint’s hand is on his face, now, but his blink is hard enough that Matt can hear the tacky sound of his eyes reopening. “We talk nearly every night – er, well,_ morning_ – before bed.”

“To keep each other up-to-date.” No one else at street level really wants to check in, and Matt likes knowing his friends are safe._ That_ is a thing, right there. It might be true that he doesn’t need to check in with everyone else the way he does with Clint, but that’s… Just because of the differences in jobs. Claire is technically a civilian, Jess avoids as much as she reasonably can, and Luke is impossibly sturdy; Frank is just_ Frank_, Rand is magic, and Peter has a curfew. Clint – though – is reckless and selfless and_ human_. Heneeds someone checking up on him… and Matt just _needs_ that person to be him. He’s a mostly responsible, semi-adult – which can’t be said for most of his work friends – and much better at sharing information. When necessary. “Plus, it’s to make sure neither of us is dead.”

“Matt…” Clint so rarely touches him without asking first – he knows that it can make Matt twitchy – but he brushes his hand against Matt’s shoulder through the sweatshirt. “We have a standing date every week.”

“Yeah…” Every Thursday at a place on Clint’s side of the river. _Viola’s_ isn’t _Josie’s_ – there’s a heavier smell of garlic, fewer issues with fighting, and the food is actually edible – and that’s part of why they go. That, and keeping work-life separate from_ night_-work-life, which matters more for one of them than the other. Thursday is_ usually_ a day when they’re not recovering from the weekend, and when Matt isn’t busy with his actual – literally_ legal_ – day job. Clint wears purple sunglasses inside on a regular basis, and Matt can switch his red ones out for aviators; they cover more of his face, and nobody gives a fuck at four in the morning. The weekly meals are a time he can take off and have cheap fun, and he really does look forward to meeting up with Clint… “For five buck pitchers and all you can eat cheese pierogi.”

“Seriously, Murdock?” His terse response aside, Clint’s pretty obviously gone from exasperated to mostly-pissed. His pulse has spiked and – by the shift of scents in the air – he’s flushing. Matt tries not to focus on the angry drumming of fingers on the back of his couch, or the way Clint’s subdued inflections make the minor increase in his volume _more_ noticeable. “Discounting that we agreed to keep the sex exclusive months ago, you’re wearing a shirt you stole from my closet because you think it smells good. Because it smells like _me.”_

“I couldn’t sleep, and…” Matt hadn’t taken the time to think about why – of all possible thoughts – the idea of getting something of Clint’s had been the first thing that had sprung to mind. It wasn’t just about having something from a friend he trusted, or even one whose place he could access; he’d had a spare key to Foggy’s apartment since they stopped being roommates. It wasn’t the sex thing, either. He _could_ have called Karen, or asked for a sweatshirt; she would have thought it was strange, but if all he’d wanted was feeling less alone… For that, it had just needed to be Clint Barton’s sweatshirt on his pillow. Now wrapped around him. His smell in Matt’s bed, even if – at the time – Matt hadn’t known why… “It helped?”

“Smelling me helped you sleep?” Clint’s doubtful words mirror the confusion in Matt’s own head.

The truth is strange to say and difficult to admit. Matt knows he’s been off, knows he felt down without their usual Thursday night out last week, knows his best days start when Clint dozes off mid-call in the early hours of the morning. He knows he feels good with Clint in his arms, better with the man at his side. With all that Matt focuses on everything else around him, running over the details makes him agree that maybe their _friendship_ skipped over that line a while ago. “I... guess this is that, yeah. Maybe we are- Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought you wanted to keep things quiet.” Clint’s hand has settled on his shoulder, one finger just brushing Matt’s skin along the collar seam. “Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know. I mean, we’re friends, and we’re just… like this?” It sounds ridiculous once Matt actually says it. “That’s what I thought we were, anyway.”

Clint would – in Matt’s opinion – be justified in being more upset; he has every right to be pissed. And he does sigh, shifting away into the corner, taking the warm pressure of his hand with him. There’s strain behind his deep breathing, purposeful effort behind the measured steadiness of his words. “We can just be friends who are like this, Matt, if, ya know…”

There’s the unspoken ending to that sentence hanging between them, the real other side of that _‘if.’_

Clint’s shifting further away, leaning his weight into the back of the sofa, lip worried between his teeth. He reaches for the table; Matt hears the tiny electrical keen as the circuits in his aids activate. The cushion of the sofa shifts as Clint tenses, palm pressed down like he means to push off and stand.

Matt slips his arm into the sleeve of the hoodie, shivering at the rough slide of the fabric up his arm, but grabbing Clint’s wrist before he has time to question himself. “If we’re dating, this is a boyfriend sweatshirt.”

“I – um…” Clint’s agitated, pulse jumping beneath Matt’s fingers, and breath unsteady. “Yeah, I guess?”

Ignoring the slight sweatiness of Clint’s palm, Matt tugs him back towards his own end of the couch. He sidles in until he can lean against Clint’s arm. “I’d like that.” Matt tilts, forcing Clint to either wrap that arm around him, or to let Matt fall into his lap. Matt ends up cuddled into the crook of Clint’s shoulder, feeling the pulse he’s been listening for all morning against his cheek.

Clint’s still agitated for a few moments, fidgeting beside him, until he rests his chin in Matt’s hair. “So we’re dating?”

“Yes.”

Clint sighs into his hair, finally relaxing against him. “But only so you can steal my clothes?”

“No... partially?” It wasn’t a plan before last night, but Matt is pretty certain he’ll be nicking things from Clint’s closet in the future; maybe asking Clint to borrow an undershirt or two to give back to him. “More that I don’t want to steal anyone else’s? But only if you’ll let me take you on a date? A real, sit-down date?”

Another soft huff ruffles his hair, with Clint’s jaw tensing just enough to make Matt shake his head. “No, not in a suit, just… nothing with holes in it?”

“I didn’t say anything.” Clint’s teasing him again, and that’s how things should be between them.

Matt shrugs. “You had a face.”

“Had?” Pulling back, Clint pats at his face, breathing in exaggerated gasps. “Is it gone?”

“I don’t know.” He’s been told this expression is – without a doubt – a shit-eating grin, but it feels like the perfect expression for the moment. Matt leans back, face angled upward and cocked a bit toward one shoulder. “I can’t see it.”

Clint is silent. Matt is, too. It’s a stalemate; a one-sided staring contest that only ends when Clint finally snorts out a chuckle and pulls him in for a tight hug.

Matt takes a moment to settle, since he’s ended up mostly seated in Clint’s lap. It takes some rearranging – the heavy canvas of Clint’s pants is rough against his ass, so he tugs the hoodie down further – leaving Matt curled back in a ball as he’s held. “You’re staying?”

“I can go if you need more alone time with my hoodie?” Clint digs his chin into Matt’s scalp, shaking his head; the touch borders on irritatingly rough, but his chuckle makes it bearable.

“No. Stay.” Matt feels soft and warm, better than he has in a week, now that Clint’s here. It’s perfect.

**➽ • ↁ • ➽ • ↁ**

**Author's Note:**

> _Poison_ is a Dior fragrance. It is on my list of _Perfumes of Natasha Romanov, Organized by Occasion_… because, of course, I have one of those.


End file.
